Archive Management: Principles and Techniques

Archives provide a tangible link to the lives and activities of individuals in the past; they enable us to hold governments and organisations accountable for their actions through the evidence they provide; and they form an indispensable part of a community’s heritage.

Records are the basic tools of business or administrative transactions. They are used to justify official actions, to record proceedings, to explain and record policy decisions, and to establish and maintain rights under law for citizens, corporations, and governments. Similarly, individuals generate records and documents every day, for example, when we send and receive emails or letters or when we write diaries. When actively retained for permanent preservation, these records and documents become archives, and they act as the memory of institutions, businesses, governments, and individuals, and they represent an essential research source for historians.

This course provides an overview of the value and nature of archives, the development and mission of archive services, and the practical aspects of caring for archival collections and making them accessible to users. It will be of particular interest to anyone with responsibility for archival material in their collections.

Tutor

Jennie Hill BA MA MScEcon - Director of Postgraduate Studies and lecturer with Information Studies at Aberystwyth University. Jennie has a wealth of experience working in information and archive posts including:

In addition to modules in archives and recordkeeping, Jennie also teaches rare books and special collections. Her research interests centre on engagement with the past in all its guises, but particularly interdisciplinary engagement with archives, public history and heritage, collecting, and the history of libraries and recordkeeping. Jennie’s publications include:

Hill, J. (2010) ed. The Future of Archives and Recordkeeping, Facet

Lane, V. and Hill, J. (2010) Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going? Situating the Archive and Archivists, in Hill, J. ed. The Future of Archives and Recordkeeping, Facet.

Hill, J. and Slocombe, W. (2010) No Larkin Around: The Serious Business of Contemporary Literary Archives, Archives: The Journal of the British Records Association, 35(122), 1-10.

Co-editor of special issue of Archives on literary archives including contributions from Jamie Andrews, GLAM, Christine Faunch, Jeff Cowton, David McClay and Peter Barry. Archives: The Journal of the British Records Association, 35 (122) April 2010.